Sweden – Male Doctor Assualted Over Sex Segregation Row In Emergency Room

Saving Life Or Preserving Sex Segregation?

When you step into the emergency room of a hospital, what do you expect to find?  Well if it is called the emergency room, its aim must be to save lives.  That means you can expect the emergency room doctors to work doubly hard to save a patient experiencing a medical emergency.  But an emergency room doctor in a Swedish hospital was recently assualted because he responded to a female patient in a medical emergency.  Said to be “of other ethnic origins”, male relatives of the female patient were furious that the male doctor had touched her, thereby violating the sex segregation law of the patient.

The Medical Emergency

Recently at Örebro University Hospital in Sweden, a woman patient gave birth to a child.  But after the childbirth, the woman suddenly went into what has been described as violent hemorrhage. A medical emergency was declared, and the sole doctor on duty at the hospital’s emergency room was immediately summoned. 

Responding to this medical emergency, the emergency room doctor rushed over to stop the woman’s bleeding.  In most cases, the relatives would be most grateful for the fast response from the emergency room doctor.  But in this case, the male relatives got very upset and angry.  Why?  Simply because the doctor was a male, and their religion forbids mixing of genders by unrelated males and females.

But there was really no choice.  News reports said that there was no female doctors present at that moment.

The Assault

René Bangshöj, head of the women’s clinic at Örebro University Hospital described what happened: “When the doctor came in, he was met by angry screaming: ‘We do not want a male doctor at the childbirth room.’”  But when the doctor ignored them and rushed to attend to the medical emergency of the female patient, the aggrieved husband lost his cool, and he attacked the doctor in a desperate bid to stop the doctor from touching his wife.

But the husband was not the only culprit who attacked the male doctor.  René Bangshöj explains what happened next: “And at the same time the woman’s brother came into the room and attacked the doctor from behind.”

And what did the male doctor do?  René Bangshöj said: “The doctor tried to protect himself against the punches and kicks, but the two foreigners nevertheless gave him a sharp kick in the groin.”

The Treatment

Seeing the male doctor being assualted, hospital staff immediately called the police who responded immediately.  Police arrested the husband and the male relative who assualted the male doctor, and took them away. 

After the arrest and removal from the hospital of these 2 violet male relatives of the woman, peace was restored and the poor woman could finally received medical attention.  She was wheeled into the surgery room and remarkedly she was saved.

So what happened to the male doctor?  Well he is still serving at the ward, but the hospital has increased security for him.

Reaction

Rene Bangshöj said that the hospital do encounter male relatives of patients demanding that women patients must be treated by female doctors, rather than male doctors. Rene Bangshöj said: “We see it as discrimination against male doctors, if we should always have to be prepared to consider these kinds of wishes.”

Think About It

For the male relatives (including the husband) to react so violently and to assualt the male doctor, how much do they value the life of the female patient facing a medical emergency?  Was it better for her to bleed to death while the hospital tried to summon a woman doctor from whereever she might be at that moment than to break the sex segregation law? And now that the female patient had been touched by a male doctor, what will happen to her?  Will she be punished for breaking the sex segregation law? If so, is it fair?